Witness testifies she saw Mariott's 'body on the floor' in Mazzaglia's apartment

Saturday

May 31, 2014 at 2:00 AM

DOVER — "As I'm walking in, there's a body on the floor," Roberta Gerkin testified Friday, recalling what she saw when she went into Seth Mazzaglia's apartment on Oct. 9, 2012. "There's a body on the floor, right next to the bed," Gerkin told a jury. "My reaction was to go numb."

Elizabeth Dinan

DOVER — "As I'm walking in, there's a body on the floor," Roberta Gerkin testified Friday, recalling what she saw when she went into Seth Mazzaglia's apartment on Oct. 9, 2012. "There's a body on the floor, right next to the bed," Gerkin told a jury. "My reaction was to go numb."

Gerkin's testimony came during the third day of a trial for Mazzaglia, who is charged with the killing of University of New Hampshire student Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott, then conspiring to dispose of her remains. The nearly nude body Gerkin saw in Mazzaglia's apartment was Marriott, according to prosecutors.

Gerkin's testimony filled the entire trial day Friday.

She said she urged Mazzaglia to remove a plastic grocery bag from Marriott's head in case she was still alive. Once he removed one bag, Gerkin said, she saw a second one under it.

Marriott's face was purple, she said, but her body was white. Mazzaglia was "calm" and explained that he'd blacked out and when he came out of it, Marriott was dead with the bags already on her head, Gerkin told jurors.

"It was framed like it was an accident," is the way she described Mazzaglia's explanation for having a dead woman in his apartment.

His girlfriend, Kathryn "Kat" McDonough, was seated on a floor nearby with her knees to her chest, Gerkin said.

Gerkin testified that she went with a person named Paul Hickok to the apartment at McDonough's invitation and urged both of them to "do the right thing" by calling for an ambulance. She left with Hickok, feeling somewhat sure that they would, she said.

Earlier on Friday, Gerkin testified that she met Mazzaglia at a Halloween event at the Governor's Inn in Rochester, where she was reading tarot cards and he was an actor. Soon after, she said, Mazzaglia asked her to perform oral sex on him because he was "like an electrical device that has too much energy" and if it wasn't released, it would "explode." She said she complied because "at that point in my life, sex was nothing."

"Sex was a relief," she said. "Sex was going to get a coke."

She said Mazzaglia spoke often about a "doomsday" scenario when "people would die" if he did not get his way, and that he had three different "personas" he considered "absolutely real."

Mazzaglia's defense team asked Judge Steven Houran to declare a mistrial, arguing that the jury would be tainted by Gerkin's testimony about the doomsday scenario and the "people would die" comment. Also, the defense argued, they had no knowledge that testimony was coming.

After considering the request during a brief recess, the judge denied the motion and instead instructed the jury to ignore the remarks.

Gerkin also described Mazzaglia as controlling of McDonough and said when she went away for two weeks to a drama camp, he instructed her to call him at specific times. If she didn't, Gerkin said, he was anxious.

"It was all about him," Gerkin said about Mazzaglia's relationship with McDonough.

She described McDonough as like a "damsel in distress" who Mazzaglia "rescued" from a dysfunctional family, and once McDonough was "rescued," she worked to "stay in his good graces." That, said Gerkin, included McDonough's awareness that Mazzaglia was looking for another woman who was "submissive" and "open to" contacting "the spirit world."

Thursday, Marriott's girlfriend, Brittany Atwood, testified that she had been in a romantic relationship with Marriott since the spring of 2012 and said it developed into an exclusive relationship that endured until the day Marriott died. She described Marriott as caring, trusting, bubbly, goofy, hardworking and determined.

Atwood also described Marriott as someone who was "experimental" and was excited about having made a new friend who, like herself, was bisexual. That friend was McDonough, Mazzaglia's girlfriend, who is serving a prison sentence for conspiring to cover up Marriott's death.

Also testifying Thursday was Rosemary Macalone, who said she lives near Mazzaglia's former apartment. She said that on the night of Marriott's death, she was watching the television show "Little House on the Prairie" when she heard a woman scream.

"It was chilling," testified Macalone, who said she was bothered "every day" that she did not call police about what she heard.

Also testifying Thursday was Nathan McNeal, who identified himself as a bartender at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, and said he previously worked with Marriott at the Target store in Greenland. He said they developed a fast friendship and knew they were each involved in separate romantic relationships, but became friends who played online video games daily.

After it was learned that Marriott was missing, McNeal said, he was interviewed by police. He later texted McDonough and asked her to "please tell me you were ignorant of all this," but she never responded, he said.

Also testifying Thursday was Strafford County jail Lt. Chris Brackett, who explained in detail how inmates can receive money from the outside for use in the jail canteen and for phone calls. He confirmed that McDonough had deposited money for three inmates who were housed in the same area of the jail as Mazzaglia in December 2012.

The significance of those transactions was not made known.

Earlier this week, the jury learned that it will have to decide whether Mazzaglia killed Marriott by strangulation, or whether McDonough smothered Marriott to death during a sex act.

Defense attorney Joachim Barth said during his opening statements Wednesday that it was McDonough who killed Marriott by placing her thighs around Marriott's head while Marriott was restrained.

Prosecutor Peter Hinckley said Mazzaglia strangled the UNH student from behind, before raping her and plotting to dispose of her body, her belongings and evidence. The prosecutor described Marriott as friendly and trusting when she agreed to go to Mazzaglia's apartment by invitation from McDonough.

He described McDonough as Mazzaglia's "sexually submissive slave" who was following his orders to find him a new "play thing" when she lured Marriott to her ultimate death.

Barth countered that McDonough killed Marriott during a sex act called "breath play," and said it was McDonough who "drove" the couple's sexual and personal relationship. He said she boasted she was the dominant of the two and had advertised herself on sadomasochism Web sites as "a switch," meaning she would engage as both a dominant and submissive sex partner.

Barth also attacked McDonough's credibility by telling the jury she heard five voices "in her head," that she had named them all, and that she argued with them. He said the couple lived in a fantasy world of theater, online gaming and role playing that spilled over to their sex lives.

Hinckley said the couple had failed to find a "submissive," third-party "sexual playmate" through online ads, so they turned their attention to Marriott. She agreed to play strip poker with the couple the night she died, Hinckley said, but when Mazzaglia suggested she and McDonough kiss, Marriott "politely, but firmly" said no.

"She rejected the master in front of his slave in his home," Hinckley said. "So he took what Lizzi denied him."

From behind, Mazzaglia placed a rope around Marriott's neck, choked her until she was unconscious, then continued to hold the rope for "minutes afterward," the prosecutor said.

Marriott, he said, let out a "quick cry" before she died and McDonough did nothing to stop him.

What followed, Hinckley said, was an elaborate attempt by Mazzaglia and McDonough to cover up the alleged crime.

Mazzaglia is quoted in an affidavit for his arrest as saying he "flipped" Elizabeth's body over a fence on Peirce Island and ultimately into the Piscataqua River.

He has since said through his pair of public defenders that his confession was a lie to protect McDonough.

Marriott's body has not been found.

Mazzaglia is charged with two "alternate theory" counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, two counts of hindering apprehension for murder, witness tampering, falsifying physical evidence and solicitation of escape.

McDonough pleaded guilty in July for her role in the case and was sentenced to 1½ to three years in prison in exchange for cooperating with investigators and her testimony during Mazzaglia's trial.

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